In a third generation (3G) radio network, a user equipment (UE) has two modes of operation, an idle mode and a connected mode. The connected mode is further classified into four states: (1) cell dedicated channel (CELL_DCH) state, (2) cell forward access channel (CELL_FACH) state, (3) cell paging channel (CELL_PCH) state, and (4) UTRAN registration area paging channel (URA_PCH) state (in which UTRAN stands for universal mobile telecommunications system terrestrial radio access network). A basic characteristic of the CELL_FACH state is that no dedicated physical channel connection is provided between the UE and the radio access network. The UE, in a downlink direction, continuously monitors transmission in a forward access channel (FACH) and, in an uplink direction, uses a common or shared transmission channel such as the random access channel (RACH). Thus, the UE can initiate an access process on an associated transmission channel at any time.
Enhanced CELL_FACH is a newly introduced technique in the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) release 7 (R7) standards. It is based on the CELL_FACH technique.
In the enhanced CELL_FACH, the downlink data borne on an FACH transmission channel can be handed over to a high speed downlink shared channel (HS-DSCH), so as to increase the data transmission rate in the CELL_FACH state and reduce the delay in a state transition.
As can be seen from the technical features of the R7 standardized enhanced CELL_FACH, in the enhanced CELL_FACH state, downlink user data is allowed to be transmitted to a UE in the CELL_FACH state through the HS-DSCH, the UE thus shares the downlink resources with other UEs in the CELL_DCH state, so that the UE in the CELL_FACH state may also enjoy high speed downlink data transmission just like the other UEs in the CELL_DCH state.
In the non-enhanced CELL_FACH state, the data transmission rate is generally lower than 32 kilobits per second (Kbps). Downlink high speed data transmission cannot be realized until the state of the UE is transited to the CELL_DCH state. In contrast, in the enhanced CELL_FACH state, the downlink high speed data transmission can be realized without transiting the state of the UE to the CELL_DCH state. Therefore, the time required for the state transition from the original CELL_FACH state to the CELL_DCH state for realizing the high speed data transmission is greatly reduced, and the data transmission rate is increased.
However, in the process of making the present invention, the inventor found that, in the current enhanced CELL_FACH state, a radio transceiver in the network, e.g. a radio base station (Node B) or an Evolution Node B (E-Node B), may not know the capability category of a UE in the current cell that implements the enhanced CELL_FACH reception. Thus, when the radio transceiver performs a transport format resource combination (TFRC) on enhanced CELL_FACH data queues using a scheduling algorithm, the operation has to be based on the lowest capability category of the UE, thereby resulting in limitations of the data transmission rate.